THE SEARCH FOR SULEIMA
Half an hour after they had gone Nicholas had made his way down to
where he was told Abdul Achmet's house stood, mindful of his promise to
Mitsos. Two or three of the Argives, who had taken possession of it,
and were ransacking the rooms for booty, stood at the door, and told
him that the prize was theirs.
"Oh, man," said Nicholas, "I come not for booty; the gold is yours. But
there is a Greek woman in the house; it is she whom I seek."
The men still seemed disposed to resent his entry, but they knew him,
and, even in the face of all the disgrace the captains had charged,
believed him clean-handed.
"Come," said he again, "I take nothing from the house, and when I go
out you shall search me if you will. Only take me to where the women
are."
The women of the harem had been locked into the room overlooking the
narrow street by which Suleima had fled, while the men searched the
rest of the house; and Nicholas, hearing that the mayor, Demetri, was
of the party, told him what he wanted.
"Of course you can go in; friend," he said. "Here, one of you, take him
to the room."
The women were sobbing and wailing together, and one cried out in
Turkish as Nicholas entered:
"Kill us if you will, but be quick."
"I touch you not," said Nicholas. "Tell me, is there not a Greek woman
among you?"
Zuleika, for it was she who had spoken, stopped crying for amazement.
"She has gone," she said. "Oh, that I had gone with her. She would not
stop within, but went down-stairs and out, I suppose. And in a few
days, perhaps sooner, will her baby be born. Oh, what are you going to
do with us?"
And she caught hold of him by the arm.
Nicholas disengaged her fingers, but gently.
"You are sure she has gone?" he said. Then to the soldiers who were
with him: "Will you allow me to search the other rooms; it is only she
whom I want?"
"And what should you want with her?" said one of them, gruffly. "All
that is in the house is ours."
"Oh, man, do not be a fool," said Nicholas. "The woman is a free Greek,
and free she shall be. She was carried off by this Turk years ago.
Come, let me go into the other rooms to be sure she is not here, for if
she is not I must seek her outside. It is a promise, and a promise to
little Mitsos."
The other consented, still reluctantly, and Nicholas looked through the
house from roof to cellar, but found her not. And "Ah, poor lad," he
thought, "but this will be bitter news, for if she has gone into the
streets, God save her!"
It was now one hour past noon, and in the hot, breathless air already
the thick sour smell of blood hung about the street. The square was a
shambles, neither more nor less, and the dead lay about in heaps. With
the peasants from the country had come in hungry, half-wild dogs, and
as Nicholas passed the square again, now deserted by the besiegers for
the great mass of the town which lay higher up the slope towards the
citadel, two or three of these slunk away with red dripping mouths
from their horrible banqueting; but one, hungrier or bolder than the
others, stood there over the body of a child snarling at him. The sight
sickened him, and he shot the animal through the head. Black patches of
flies swarmed in hundreds over the congealed pools of blood, and rose
with an unclean whir and buzz as he approached. The heat was stifling,
and from the tower where he had planted it but four hours ago the flag
hung in folds round its staff. The deadly taint of death was in the
air, with the foul odors of flesh already putrefying. Nicholas felt
suddenly faint and weary, but seeing a stream of water running down one
of the gutters in the square all red and turbid, he followed it up and
found where it sprang from--a leaden pipe out of a lion's mouth in one
of the side streets. He drank deeply of it, and bathed his face and
hands there, and feeling refreshed followed on towards where he knew
the Mainats would be. Mixed with the dead were not a few Greeks, and as
he passed up the street he saw with a sudden pang of horror three or
four bodies, apparently lifeless, stir, and from below there came out
the hand of a living man, striving to get hold of something by which he
could pull himself up. Nicholas turned the bodies off and found a Greek
soldier below, whom he carried into the shade, and fetched him water.
The man was but slightly wounded in the arm, the gash was already
beginning to clot over, and Nicholas, having bound up the place with a
strip of his fustanella, left him, for there was much work to be done.
Right and left from the houses in the street came cries and screams,
and now and then a woman, with her clothes perhaps half torn off her,
would steal out like a cat, and seeing Nicholas, either steal back
again or run from him. After each of these, he shouted some sentence in
Greek, but got no response. Once a child ran up to him, howling with
tears and pain, and showed him a horrible gash in its arm, wantonly
inflicted by one of his countrymen, babbling to him in Turkish that
it could not find its mother. Then Nicholas, despite his fierce vows
to have no pity on man, woman, or child for the wrong that had been
done to him and his by that pitiless race, waited ten minutes to bind
up the wound, and--for what else could he do--bade the child get out
of the town, for its mother was outside. On his way he passed several
Greek soldiers, one dragging a woman after him, another with his
hands full of a pile of gold and silver, the smaller pieces of which
dropped through his fingers as he walked. Nicholas inquired where the
Mainats were, and was told he would find a number of them at a big
square house on the slope up to the citadel gate, which they had just
entered. Fighting seemed to be going on in an upper story, and even
as he approached a group of men, Turks and Greeks mixed, appeared on
the house-top. Next moment two who were struggling together toppled
and fell against the thin railing which lined the roof; it broke under
their weight, and both men, still clutching at each other's throats,
fell toppling over into the street with a horrid crash and sound of
breaking. The Turk was living and moved feebly, but the head of the
Mainat was smashed like an egg.
At that moment Yanni appeared at the door of the house, his face
flushed, and the fire of fighting hot upon him.
"You here?" he cried to Nicholas. "We thought you must be dead. Oh,
how wild Mitsos will be when he finds that he has been out of it!"
"It is of Mitsos, too, I am thinking," said Nicholas. "Oh, Yanni, come
and help me; there are butchers enough. Help me to find her."
Yanni stared at him a moment before he understood.
"Suleima," he cried, "God forgive us all! She in this town, and I had
forgotten, and the Mavromichales are gone mad! If she is there--oh,"
and he threw down his knife, and looked stupid-like at his hands which
were red and caked with blood and dust.
"Come and search for her, Yanni," said Nicholas again; "she is not in
the house of Abdul, and every moment that she is in the streets may be
her last."
"She left the house! Are you sure?" asked Yanni. "Where is it? Let us
run there."
"I have been already," said Nicholas. "See, Yanni, you go one way and
I another, and we will meet here again in an hour. Speak in Greek to
every woman you see."
"Yes, yes," said Yanni; "which way shall I go? Oh, Mitsos, poor little
Mitsos, and I killed two women myself, for they had knives and tried to
stab me."
"Here, go steady, and be sensible," said Nicholas, for the boy seemed
half beside himself. "Pick up your knife again; you were going unarmed.
Do not stop, even to kill. Walk about, go where you hear a woman
cry--God forgive us, but that is a task for a hundred--and speak to all
in Greek. And be back here in an hour. Where is Petrobey?"
"In the house," said Yanni, and went off in the direction Nicholas had
told him.
On that mad and ghastly day Petrobey was one of the few who had
kept his head, and getting together a few sensible men, he had
systematically worked his way up the street, stopping only to kill
where there were signs of resistance. Open doors and men flying
unarmed he left alone; there were plenty to do work like that; but he
forced door after door where barricades had been put up, and attacked
bodies of soldiers, who still from time to time charged out of some
house or other, trying to force their way out to one of the gates.
Without him and a few resolute bands of men it is possible that
great slaughter would have taken place among the unarmed rabble who
had followed the Greeks, and that a considerable body of men would
have collected and won their way out of the city, and over the now
undefended hills to Argos or Nauplia. He had also ordered up, under an
armed escort, a train of provision-laden mules for the Mainats who were
with him, and these supplies had just arrived before Nicholas came up.
"Stay with us and eat, dear cousin," he said to Nicholas, "for men
cannot fight fasting. And, oh, Nicholas, but my life and all I have are
yours, for you did not fail me when God and man forsook me!"
"Give me something, then, to take with me," said Nicholas, "for I have
work before me. That girl of Mitsos' had left the house before I got
there, and God knows where she is, alive or dead. I love the lad, and
indeed we owe him a debt we can never repay for all he has done, and I
should never forgive myself, nor hope for forgiveness, if I did not do
what I could to find her."
Petrobey shook his head. "She may have taken refuge in some other
house," he said. "If not--"
"Why should she fly from one house to another? If she is alive she
is either somewhere in the streets, or it is just possible she has
escaped."
Petrobey shook his head again.
"One woman fly in the face of that mob? God be with your kind heart,
Nicholas. Poor little Mitsos, poor lad!"
Nicholas tore off a crust of bread, and staying only to swallow a
draught of wine, went out again into the blinding glare of the streets.
Everywhere it was the same ghastly scene over again: heaps of bodies;
gutters with slow, oily streams of blood flowing and congealing; here a
Turk wounded and in the last agony of death; there some young country
lad shot through the heart, lying with open mouth and glazed eyes,
which stared unblinkingly at the sun. Sometimes a woman lay across the
path, while a little baby, still living and unhurt, lay beside where
she had fallen, and groped with feeble, automatic hands for her breast.
By them all without stopping went Nicholas, peering about for any sign
of a living woman, but finding none. Very few apparently had been so
desperate as to run into the street like Suleima, and though he felt
the search wellnigh hopeless he went on. Once he came across a woman
lying in the path, not yet dead, and as he bent over her she opened her
eyes and spoke to him in Turkish. Nicholas questioned her in Greek, but
she did not understand, and he went on again. In a little more than an
hour he was back and found Yanni waiting for him, but he too had seen
no sign of her they had never seen but sought.
All that afternoon the work went on, and at sunset Petrobey set a
strong watch at all the gates, and he with most of the men went to
sleep in the camp outside, where the air was less stifling and the
poisonous breath from the murdered town came not. But Nicholas, who
still hoped against hope, would not leave the place; by night, he
thought, if Suleima was in hiding somewhere in the town she might try
to steal back to the house, or attempt to escape by one of the gates;
and he sat waiting in the doorway of Abdul Achmet's house till he fell
asleep from sheer weariness, having seen naught but the dogs paddling
about on their horrible errands. He woke early, before it was dawn,
shivering and feeling ill; and thinking that his chill came only from
exposure to the night air, got up and walked about, waiting for day. As
soon as it was light he went out of the south gate to the Mainat camp,
and had breakfast with Petrobey, who shook his head sadly over the
absence of news.
Some sort of order was restored in the camp that day, and a third
part of each of the four regular corps was stationed to blockade the
citadel, while the others, in a more orderly manner and under the
command of officers, went on with the sack of the town. The rabble
who had passed in the day before were driven out of the place, and
a watch set at each of the gates; but these measures were only half
successful, for many took to hiding in the deserted houses, or, having
been ejected, climbed back again at the Argive tower, or at other
points of the walls where they could find entrance. Already many of the
Greeks were ill with an ill-defined fever, which Petrobey put down to
the effects of the foul, pestilence-laden atmosphere, and he employed
a number of men to cart the dead out of the city and burn them. But
they were not able to keep pace with the massacring which went on all
day, and that evening the fever took a more pronounced and violent form
in many of the eases, and before the morning of the 7th fifty or more
Greeks, chiefly countrymen, who had slept two nights in the streets,
were dead.
Just before dawn on the 7th a party of Turks made a sortie from the
citadel and broke through the Greek lines. The alarm was given at once
by the sentries, but the Turks were already among them before they
were able to make any resistance, and after not more than ten minutes'
fighting, they had broken their way through, and were doubling down
the street towards the Argive gate. The guard there had sprung to arms
at the sound of the disturbance above, and they engaged the Turks with
somewhat better success, but more than half the original number got
through and made straight for the unguarded hills between the plain and
Argos.
Nicholas, who had passed a feverish, tossing night, feeling weak and
weary, yet unable to sleep, had sprung up at once on the alarm, and was
among the first to meet the charge. In the darkness the fighting was
wild and random; they fought with shadows, and parrying a sword thrust
aimed at his head, though he turned the blow aside, he felt the weapon
wound him just below the shoulder, and the edge grate on the bone. Such
rough aid as could be given him was at once administered. His arm was
tightly bound above the wound to stop the bleeding from the severed
artery, and, after the rough but often effective surgery of the day,
the severed ends of the artery were cauterized and bound up, and the
edges of the wound were brought together. No serious consequences were
expected, for the flow of blood was soon checked, but for the present
any further search for Suleima was out of the question. But a couple
of hours later he grew more feverish and restless, and by ten o'clock
on the morning of the 8th he was delirious, down with that swift and
terrible fever which during the past night had already claimed many
victims.
At mid-day the remainder of the garrison in the citadel surrendered
unconditionally from want of water, for the whole supply had come from
the lower town, and ten minutes later the Greek flag was flying from
the tower. The shouts with which it was hailed roused Nicholas, who
had sunk into a heavy sort of stupor, and he found Yanni sitting by his
side.
"What is it?" he asked. "Have they found Suleima?"
"It is the citadel which has surrendered," said Yanni; "they have
hoisted the flag on the tower."
Nicholas half raised himself. "Then the Morea is free from Corinth to
Maina," he said. "O merciful and gracious Virgin! It only remains to
find Suleima."
Presently after, he sank back into a stupor again, though every now and
then he would stir and mutter something to himself.
"Why does not little Mitsos come?" he said, once; "tell him I want him.
I did all I could to find her, but it was no use. Little Mitsos, there
will be no more fire-ships ... it was a devilish task to set you ...
don't you see the flag is flying; Tripoli has fallen; the Turks and
their lusts are over forever; we are free!"
Then suddenly, in the loud strong voice which Yanni knew so well: "The
Lord is a man of war!" he cried.
The news had run about the camp that Nicholas was down with the fever,
and for the moment all paused when they heard. As every man in the
place knew, his was the glory of the deed, and he the chief among those
few to whose name honor, and nothing disgraceful, no weak deed or
infirm purpose, were written. They had moved him out of the town unto
the higher ground of the citadel, and into the top room of the tower on
which the flag was flying. A great north wind sprang up that afternoon,
and from the room where he lay could be heard the flapping of the flag.
Those of the men who had any knowledge of medicine came flocking up to
the citadel, begging to be allowed to see him, and suggesting a hundred
remedies; and of these Petrobey chose one, who seemed to be sensible,
and who it appeared had pulled a man through the worst of the fever,
and he gave Nicholas such remedies as they could get.
That afternoon there was a division of the spoils taken, and in the
evening, but not before a terrible and bloody deed had been done,
three corps went back to their homes, the Mainats alone remaining. The
Argives and Mainats, at any rate, had no hand in that devilish work,
which must be passed over quickly. All the Turks--men, women, and
children--who were found still alive were driven to the ravine behind
Trikorpha, and some two thousand in number were all murdered.
It was, indeed, time to leave that pestilence-stricken town. During the
day the fever had broken out with redoubled virulence among all those
who had quartered themselves in the lower parts of the town, and the
angel of death followed the victorious battalions into Arcadia, Argos,
and Laconia, striking them right and left, and strewing the road with
dying men. The judgment of God for those three ruthless days had come
quickly. Mitsos' father, who had escaped unhurt, doing his quiet duty
in the ranks of the Argives from the first, saw Petrobey before he left.
"Tell Mitsos to come quickly," he said. "And did you know Father Andréa
has not been seen since the first morning?"
Meantime, in the north, it was found that the rumor of the Turkish
landing was groundless, and Prince Demetrius was hurrying back to
Tripoli. Germanos had joined him; but two days' march off the town,
news of its capture was brought to them, on which Mitsos obtained
permission to go on ahead to report the prince's coming, and announce
that no landing of Turks had taken place. He travelled night and day,
for his heart gave him wings, and late on the night of the 8th he
reached Tripoli.
The unutterable stench in the streets struck him like death, and turned
consciousness to a horrible dread. Shutting his eyes to the ghastly
wreckage that strewed the ways, more horrible under the dim, filtering
light from the clear-swept sky than even in daylight, he went quickly
up to the citadel, where he supposed the troops would be. He was
challenged by the sentry at the gate, who, seeing who he was, admitted
him at once. He was taken straight to Petrobey's quarters, in the room
just below where Nicholas lay.
The boy's voice was raised in eager question, but Petrobey hushed him.
"My poor lad," he said, "you must be brave, for we know you can be
brave. We have not found her, and in the room above Nicholas lies
dying. He has been asking for you; go to him at once, little Mitsos. I
will send your food there."
Mitsos gave one gasping sigh.
"She may yet be here," he said; "where are the women and the prisoners?"
"There are no women and there are no prisoners," said Petrobey.
Mitsos stood silent a moment, looking at the other with bright, dry
eyes, and swaying a little as he stood.
"And Uncle Nicholas is dying and has asked for me," he said. "Let me go
to him."